Anything for Anything

This is your first time here at Sauldam. What we might do, what we do next, might feel a little odd to you, but we spend just a little portion of our service every Sunday where we just pray because we know that what we try in our strength, it might work. It might be okay, but what we do in God’s strength is sure to be strong. So, what we want to do is just, we just want to pray for the moms in the room. All the biological, or grandmothers, adoptive, spiritual, whatever it is. So, just grab a neighbor and pray. Kids, be a great time to pray out loud by name for your mom. Especially to note all the good things, okay? Say, “God, I just think about how beautiful my mom is, how smart she is, how wise she is.” Some credit, okay? There you go. Instant credit for you. So, grab a neighbor. Let’s pray for our moms before we go into the sermon. Thank y’all.

Heavenly Father, I want to say thank you. I want to say thank you for my earthly mom. We’re, I want to, I to thank you for a woman that consistently put her family above herself and for years. I just got to watch sacrifice and just patiently endure my stupidity and just be so kind. I want to thank you for a mom that consistently brought me to church even when I didn’t want it, who as best as she could made the just Christianity and the the things of this faith accessible to me. I want to thank you for her. I want, I want to thank you for my wife, the the mom that I get to watch on a day in and day out basis that I get to partner with, and God, thank you for her and how she just so consistently nurtures our kids. Lord, I want to thank you for the women that have been surrogate moms to me. I think about the the women that partnered with my mom when I was a child coming up. I think about some of the older women of churches I’ve been part of that have just treated me like their son. I thank you even for a couple of the ladies here at Sauldam who have been my local mom even when my biological mom hasn’t been here. Lord, thank you.

God, in the midst of all that though, Mother’s Day, it it it’s a weird holiday. God, some of us honestly, we’ve got really weird feelings attached to our moms. When we think about our moms, it’s not the warm fuzzies, it’s cold, it’s distant, maybe even bitter and harsh. Or for some of the women in the room, they think about Mother’s Day and they feel a sense of emptiness and pain because they never got that privilege to be a biological mom. And God, it’s one of the great things about who you are is that you’re so big. You can meet all of us exactly where we’re at right now regardless of our experience. Some of us came in here really excited, some of us came in here a little frustrated, some of us came in here feeling dejected, and you’re right here, ready to meet with every single one of us. So, thank you for that.

Holy Spirit, please meet with us. Over the next few minutes, I’m going to deliver a message that I believe is from you. And I’m just begging you to do something with this. I’m begging you to get a hold of this, that it be so much more than just Uncle Jeremy’s advice for this week. Let this be a message from the God of the universe. Get a hold of us. Do something with this, please. For anybody in the room that doesn’t know you yet as Lord and Savior, would you use this obscure passage out of the book of Judges to get a hold of them? Would you woo them to the gospel and to the good things of the kingdom? For anybody here that does know you as Lord and Savior, but is just wrestling and trapped with something, I pray you would free them, that you would offer them a better way out. So, that all of us, whether we came in here fully believing or not yet believing, all of us would walk out of here in a few minutes knowing there’s a good God that loves us like crazy. We love you, Lord. Thank you for loving us. It’s in your great name that we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Well, you go ahead and make your way back to your seats. One other thing.

That’s really cool, or that I get to got to enjoy because Becca is the student director here. Yesterday we had a big yard and bake sale to raise money for student mission trip coming up this upcoming summer. I mean, I just want to say, man, like can we just give ourselves a round of applause for that? It was absolutely incredible. I think it’d be nearly impossible to calculate all the man hours that went into putting it on, from people coming up here on Friday night and helping Becca set up everything, to running the yard sale yesterday, to breaking it down, the folks that made the baked goods and stuff like that. Man, super proud of everybody. The the list is way too long for me to begin to rattle off all the names. I don’t want to leave people out. So, if you feel like you contributed in any capacity, yes, great job, you. So, fantastic. We got to raise. Anybody have an idea how much money we raised? All right, Cody, what do you think? Cody made me a dog. Good job, man. 2,300 some odd dollars, man. Yeah, seriously. It’s super super exciting. So, great work. I’ve got a feeling about a thousand of that was just us selling our stuff to us. But, that’s okay. That’s okay. Like I I heard that one of our members bought a bike and another one of the members, it may have been Buck, was riding that bike around at some point, you know? So, man, super excited to be part of that.

Another thing I get to be part of as a pastor is weddings occasionally. So, super excited. We’ve got I’ve got a wedding coming up here in a couple months. Get to preach a wedding about every, you know, twice a year, something like that. But, some of y’all don’t know, or most of y’all don’t know this: preaching weddings was not the first way I got involved in weddings. When I was a student at Charleston Southern University, my best friend was a student in the business college, and he had a professor who had a little side business, and I needed some money cuz I had my sight set on a girl that I was ready to marry and have my own wedding with. And this this professor had this little job, and he was looking for some cheap college labor, and I man I fit the bill. I had a pulse and I was cheap. So there we go. I was a prime candidate for his company. We were wedding DJs. If you can believe it, for about 6 months I was a wedding DJ for some of the best hottest venues in downtown Charleston and Mount Pleasant. It’s just as believable as you think it is. Y’all, I had a two-door Honda Civic, and my job I would I would leave CSU at like 2:00 on a Friday, and I would ride huh? Yeah babe, I’m getting to that. I would leave CSU at like 2:00 on a Friday. I’d roll to his house in Summerville, and I would find my little stack of stuff in his garage, which was like headquarters for this company. Now we it was the whole deal. We had like five or six outdoor speakers. He was still running off of three-ring binders of CDs. We were having like a mixing board in my two-door Honda Civic. So I would play Tetris and I’d get everything into my car. I’m wearing a cheap suit, and man, you don’t know this, but my car didn’t have AC. And we’re in Charleston. And ain’t no weddings happening at like a convenient time to not have air conditioning. You know what I mean? So I would show up to the venue downtown Mount Pleasant. I’d meet the wedding coordinator, and I’m already pouring sweat, and it’s just not a good look. It would take me about an hour. I’d get everything set up. And I’d run this wedding. The weddings were okay. That was that was pretty that’s pretty typical stuff. But then you get to the reception. I hated my job so much, guys. I hated my job so much. I enjoyed talking in front of crowds. This is a new skill of mine. This is a new enjoyment. Man, 20-year-old little Jeremy talking to a bunch of people who are, you know, lubricated with some intoxicants at this point. And now announcing for the first time, I hated that job so much. I could not wait until the call time. And I would know, 11:00 or 10:30, man, I can start packing stuff up, make the journey back from downtown or Mount Pleasant over to Summerville to drop off the stuff and roll back to CSU. I’d roll in about midnight. I’m still pouring, drenched in sweat. I see all my friends finishing up midnight basketball and I’m like, man, that’d be cool. That’d be cool. There were some weddings that I really hated being at. Today’s passage is going to feature a wedding. I really, really glad I’m not the DJ of. Turn to Judges chapter 14. Judges chapter 14. This passage also features a wedding that also had some some some lubrication going on, that also had some weird nefarious deeds happening. Man, this is one of those passages, this is weird, you know, whenever I set out to preach the book of Judges, I was not saying I’m excited to preach Judges 14. But, this is God’s word for us and honestly, I’m going to start with one verse, verse number four, because this verse makes sense of the entire chapter. Look at verse verse four of Judges chapter 14 with me. His, Samson, his father and mother did not know this, what we’re going to read, was from the Lord, who wanted the Philistines to provide an opportunity for a confrontation. At that time, the Philistines were ruling Israel.

If you are just dropping in, this is your first Sunday with us. We’re in a series on the book of Judges. It’s before the time of the kings, before David, before Saul, before Solomon, but it’s after Israel has come into the promised land. So, you’ve got these tribes of Israel, and they’ve got all these enemies, the Philistines, the Canaanites, all these people, and all these enemies are battling against them, and they need leaders. So, God keeps raising up these leaders called judges. The one we’re looking at right now, his name is Samson. Now, God has a special plan and a special call on Samson. And what we’re looking at this morning is a moment where God is going to provide an opportunity for a confrontation with the Philistines. Now, all the details of what’s going to happen in Judges chapter 14, I’ll let you decide if God is going to sovereignly orchestrate every single one of these, or if it’s just God’s He’s just kind of spinning the top and letting it go, but what’s happening is directed by God.

So, I want to just give you one major truth for you to hold on to this morning. If you don’t remember anything else, please know this. It’s that God can use anyone and anything. God can use anyone and anything. Our God is so great that He does not need your life to be all buttoned up for Him to use you. Our God is so wise, He does not need you to make all the right choices for you to be useful to Him. Our God is so compassionate and so forgiving and so redemptive that He does not need you on your best behavior every single second of every single day for Him to say, “I’m going to use her.” God can use anyone and anything. So, if you rolled in this morning fighting with somebody, still upset about something that happened a month ago, you are a prime candidate to be used by God. But, if you came in this morning saying, “Look at me. Man, aren’t I something special?” You might find that you are the type of person God struggles to use. God can use anyone and anything.

Man, if we could be real for a second before I get into the text, I want I just want you to be real. Have you ever been in a situation where it just seems like everything was out of control? Have you ever been in this moment where this seems like there is no way anything good can come from what you’re experiencing? Maybe the details really are just like all up in the air and you don’t see a way through it or maybe you’re just stuck in the midst of something that is so dark and so hard and you’re like, “Man, if there is a God, He clearly is either disinterested or just totally unable to do anything.” This passage to me feels a little bit like that. But, trust that God can use anyone and anything. Man, that’s what Joseph told his brothers who sold him into slavery, but then God used that slavery to elevate him. It’s what the New Testament even teaches in Romans chapter 8. Let me just read this a little truth over you. Romans chapter 8 verses 28 through 30. We know that all things not some things not most things we know all things work together for the good of those who Love God, who are called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. Those that God predestined, He also called. Those whom God called, He also justified. Those whom God justified, He also glorified. Man, God can and does use anyone and anything to accomplish whatever He wants to do. God even uses those hard moments where it feels like everything is going off the rails to bring you into a deeper relationship with Himself. So, with all that being said, let’s jump back into this passage, Judges 14:1-4.

Samson went down to the town of Timnah and saw a young Philistine woman there. He goes back and tells his mom and his dad, “Hey, I have seen a young Philistine woman in Timnah. Now, get her for me as a wife.” But his father and mother said to him, “Can’t you find a young woman among your relatives or among any of our people, the Israelites? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines for a wife?” But Samson told his father, “Get her for me, for she is the right one for me.” Now, his father and mother did not know this was from the Lord, who wanted the Philistines to provide an opportunity for a confrontation. At that time, the Philistines were ruling Israel.

So, a wedding. Samson sees a young lady and he says, “Man, I want to marry this lady.” Two motivations are driving this marriage. Obviously, God’s sovereignty, we see that in verse four, but also Samson’s lust. Look at the repetition of see or saw. Multiple times, that’s just what’s happening. And verse three, at the very end, where Samson says she’s the right one for me, some of your translations are a little more accurate and it says, she’s right in my eyes. Samson is purely concerned about outside appearances. He is just purely physically attracted to this woman. His lust, humanly speaking, is what’s driving this marriage. And yet, God is so great and so powerful, He can even use Samson’s sinful urges to begin to accomplish His plans. God is so good, He can use anyone and anything.

Yet, just a little bit of nugget for us. Let’s not test God that way. Right? Let’s not let our sinful urges be what God sovereignly uses to accomplish His plans. Let’s offer God our best attempts at grace-fueled obedience and holiness. Let’s not ask God to miraculously turn our terrible decisions into something good. Instead, let’s say, God, here’s all I am. Please use me however You want. I wonder if Samson had offered a prayer like that, how differently his life would have gone. I wonder if we would offer prayers like that, how much of the pain and the confusion we would avoid and that we wouldn’t thrust on people.

Nevertheless, God is able to use Samson’s lust to accomplish His plans. His parents are against this marriage. They don’t want Samson marrying outside of the people of Israel. Nevertheless, God is driving the story whether his mom and dad realize it or not.

So, let’s continue verses five through nine. Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother, and they came to the vineyards of Timnah. Suddenly, a young lion came roaring at them, and the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully on Samson, and he tears the lion apart with his bare hands. Now, I mean, Cody, all of you see that? Samson tears this thing apart with his hands the way he might have torn a young goat. Whatever that means. I was like, I’ve never seen a man tear a goat apart with his hands, let alone a lion. Must be some tougher dudes, I don’t know. But he didn’t tell his father or his mother what he had done. Then, he went, and he spoke to the woman because she seemed right to Samson.

After some time, look at this, when he returned to marry her, he left the road to see the lion’s carcass. And there was a swarm of bees with honey in the carcass. So, he scoops some honey into his hands, and he ate it as he went along. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some of this honey, presumably just in his hand, to his mom and dad. But he didn’t tell them that he had scooped the honey from the lion’s carcass. What? The Spirit of the Lord clearly has His hand on Samson as Samson is putting his hands on a lion. The Spirit of the Lord helping Samson is a very clear sign of God’s help and his presence. But two details ought to catch our eyes in what happens. The first one is this: Samson, whenever he goes back to that lion, and he’s scooping honey out of that thing, he breaks one of the requirements for the Nazarite vow we looked at last week. Before Samson was ever even born, God comes to Samson’s mom and dad and says, “Hey, though you have not been able to have any kids, I’m going to give you a son. You’re going to raise that son like a Nazirite from birth until his death. To be a Nazirite, that means you don’t touch corpses, you don’t cut your hair, and you don’t drink alcohol.”

Samson, from the moment we get to see him making his own decisions, starts breaking those requirements. Goes up to this corpse of the lion and he takes the honey and he starts eating it. But then he takes his defilement, he takes that honey, and he gives it to his parents. One of the things about being a Nazirite is that it just meant you were just a very intentional Jewish person. Because to be a Jew, you weren’t supposed to touch corpses, either. So, Samson takes his sin, he takes his breaking the law, he takes his breaking this requirement, and he spreads it to his parents by offering them the honey, too.

Man, it seems like Samson has a complete disregard for both his own holiness and his parents’ holiness. Samson is just living his life, does not care what comes of his choices. Completely driven by his lusts and his appetite. The honey inside of the lion was certainly a miracle, but the miracle was also supposed to be a test for Samson. Would he maintain his Nazirite vow? Would he protect his holiness? And unfortunately, he fails the test.

Man, so far, I just—I’ve got two spiritual lessons for everybody in the room. The first one is this: my sin, it’ll get on you. When Samson scoops the honey and shares it with his mom and dad, his sin gets to them. Here’s what I mean by this. When I say my sin will get on you, all sin is inherently relational in nature. See, God has not made us to be independent, isolated beings kind of orbiting around each other in the solar system. God has made us to be an interconnected family, and like a web, more like cells being built together inside of a plant. Which means what I have eventually is going to get to you, and what you have eventually is going to get to me.

So, whenever I scroll on my phone and my eyes see the image that I know I’m supposed to not look at, and I linger on that, that moment is going to get from me to you. Because what contaminates one part of the plant is always going to get to the next part of the plant. It’s always going to spread. My sin will get on you. So, man, like honestly, one of the greatest ways for me to help fight my sin is when I am tempted in this moment of being bitter at somebody or looking at something I’m not supposed to look at or making a choice that I know is supposed to be bad, I think, man, how is this going to hurt the people at Sauldam? Man, how is my moment of weakness going to make us a weaker, sicker church? My sin’s going to get on you.

But another lesson we can learn from Samson so far is that God uses success to test us. God gave Samson an incredible moment where Samson was able to protect himself. He tore this lion apart, and God validates this miracle with another miracle of making the swarm of bees inhabit this lion carcass, and they make honey. And you had to know that Samson at this point, he’s a full-grown man. He knows the requirements of being a Nazarite. It’s all he’s heard about from his mom and his dad from the time he could talk. He knows these rules, and God’s using this to test him.

And man, I just want to look at you and say, God, He will use your success to test you, too. Man, God gives us success in life, but that success is not supposed to take His place of importance. Man, God might give you some incredible kids, but those kids aren’t supposed to become your God. God might give you an incredible job, but that job’s not supposed to rule your life. God might give you some accomplishments in whatever hobby you have, but man, protecting your status As a weekend warrior in a fishing tournament, man, that’s not supposed to become your God. God will use our successes to test us. Just like He’s using Samson’s success to test him. However, God can use anyone and anything. He even uses Samson’s blatant sin to set up His own plans because the lion and the honey will take center stage at Samson’s wedding. The wedding that I am so glad I did not DJ.

Verses 10 through 18, read them with me. His father went down to visit the woman. This had been customary. Dads would have arranged all the wedding details. That makes sense. Samson’s dad goes to visit the woman and Samson prepared a feast there as the young men were accustomed to do. When the Philistines saw Samson, they brought 30 men to accompany him. “Let me tell you a riddle,” Samson said to them. “If you can explain it to me during the 7 days of the feast and figure it out, I’ll give you 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothes. But if you can’t explain it to me, you must give me 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothes.” “Tell us your riddle,” they replied. “Let’s hear it.” So, he said to them, “Out of the eater came something to eat, and out of the strong came something sweet.”

After 3 days, they were unable to explain the riddle. On the fourth day, they said to Samson’s wife, “Persuade your husband to explain the riddle to us, or we will burn you and your father’s family to death.” “What? Did you invite us here to rob us?” So, Samson’s wife came to him weeping and said, “You hate me. You don’t love me. You told my people the riddle, but you haven’t explained it to me.” “Look. You just can’t You just see it, right?” Samson just holding his little chalice of whatever he’s drinking. “Look. I haven’t even explained it to my parents. Why would I explain it to you?” So, she wept. She wept the whole 7 days of the feast, and at last, on the seventh day, he explained it to her because she had nagged him so much. Man, starting off in marital bliss. Then she explained it to her people. And on the seventh day, before sunset, at the last possible moment, the men of the city gather. They look at Samson. They say, “What’s sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?” So, he clapped back. “If you hadn’t have plowed with my young cow, you You know my riddle now.” That sounded just as bad back then as it just sounded to you right now.

Doesn’t this read like a bad soap opera? A band of locals blackmail a young bride to get at her cocky groom. The cocky groom flaunting his wit to take advantage of 30 dudes he doesn’t know. This is terrible. This is all happening during the days of the wedding. But there’s a couple more details that make this even more salacious. The first is this. The feast that Samson is setting up. There’s a couple different words in the Old Testament that would have been used to capture this. The word being used here is not the word for wedding. It’s the word for drinking party. What they are doing is they’re commemorating this wedding with a 7-day rager. 7 days of just drinking and enjoying that. 7 days of drunken revelry. 7 days of all day, every day, what they’re doing is drinking.

Now, Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding. However, the Bible says drunkenness is not God’s best for your life. So even now, Samson has broken the second Nazarite requirement. Man, we are 2 weeks into Samson’s adult life and he’s already broken two out of the three rules. It’s in this moment after all of the nagging from his new wife, after all of the drinking, after all of the partying, that Samson, sorry, it’s in this moment that Samson tells them this impossible riddle. And the only way the locals can unravel the riddle is by threatening Samson’s wife. In the end, Samson’s resolve is going to be worn down by his fiance’s nagging. A pattern to be repeated with his next wife, Delilah. And in both situations, Samson’s lust will determine his consequences.

So, let’s see how the story wraps in verses 19 through 20. Now, draw some meaning from this for us. The spirit of the Lord came powerfully on him, and he went down to Ashkelon, a city on the coast, and he killed 30 men. Strips them, means he’s touching corpses again. Grabs their clothes and gives it to the folks at the wedding that he had explained the riddle to. In a rage, Samson returned to his father’s house. And get this, his wife was given to one of those 30 dudes. So, Samson begins the week ready to marry this lady he just had to have, ends the week killing 30 random dudes in another city with his new wife being given in marriage to some other dude that he doesn’t care about. He doesn’t even know.

Once again, the spirit of the Lord empowers Samson to accomplish something incredible. Once again, God helps Samson do something that does not make sense to us. In this, Samson now starts to fulfill his calling. See, God’s whole plan what for Samson was to deliver the Israelites from the power of the Philistines. So, Samson starts to do that. Man, if you’re like me, he is not the hero we would expect the Bible to celebrate. Samson is driven by his lust. He is blatant in defiling his holiness. He breaks the three rules, or at least two of the three that God has given him. He is arrogant. He gives in to his wife’s nagging. He kills people in rage. Yet, he is clearly God’s man for the assignment. The spirit of the Lord empowers him twice. First, to kill a lion to set up the riddle, then to kill the Philistines to keep his word. In the end, God is going to use Samson. God can use anyone and anything.

So, what do you make of this? Just be be real with me. Do you think God can use anyone and anything? Can God use anyone and anything? Do you think it’s fair that God does? Is it fair that God would use that person? Is it fair that God would use that horrible situation? Is it fair that God uses the weak to shame the strong? Is it fair that God uses your difficulties to make something good happen? You see, it’s not just a question of can God it’s a question of should God. Should God use anyone and anything? And God’s resounding answer is yes.

God’s so good, He can even use Samson, the lustful raging brute to save Israel. God is so good, He can use David, the shepherd boy, to defeat Goliath. God is so good, He can use Jonah, the unwilling missionary, to reach the city of Nineveh. God is so good, He can use doubting Thomas to help launch the church. God is so big and powerful, He can even take Paul, a persecutor and a killer of Christians, and make him into a global preacher of the gospel. God is so good, He could even use you and me, imperfect, failing, broken people to bring God’s kingdom into every place we go. And God is so good, I should say it today, He can even use regular old ladies to raise kids that make a difference in this world. Man, God can even use Satan and the betrayal of a disciple to secure our freedom in the gospel.

You see, Jesus’ path to the cross was one that He set His sights on from before the foundation of the world. When He stepped down off of His throne, out of heaven, and inhabited the life of a baby, when He became flesh and was born, and He started living, and the moment He could, He started making decisions in line with God’s plan for His life, which was to seek and to save the lost, which would lead Him onto a cross eventually. But Jesus would not just get there by flaunting Himself and asking, “Please crucify me, it’s part of the plan. Please hang me on a wooden cross. I have to do this.” Now, Jesus knew He was going there, and He knew it was necessary, but the way He was going to get there was through the hardest, most difficult thing that the disciples, those that followed Him, thought that God could never use. Because from before the foundation of the world, before there was ever a need for forgiveness and salvation, God knew that one of His angels named Lucifer was going to fall from heaven. Was going to lead a cosmic rebellion against God Himself. Was going to tempt one of the disciples named Judas. Get Judas to betray Jesus into the hands of the Romans and the Jews. So that Jesus would be put up on that cross. Man, if God can take the Roman cross if He could take the betrayal from a friend if He could take the actions and the scheming of the evil one who hates your guts and make something so good like salvation and forgiveness come from it. God can and He will use whatever you go through this week. That cancer diagnosis, man, God’s got that. Your financial situation, God can totally handle. That issue with another church member or with your friends where there’s friction, God can use this. Your financial issue, like I said, God’s got that. This personal struggles, the inner darkness, the setbacks and the mistakes, yes, even your willful rejection of God and His ways, God can take all of that and make something good come out of it because when God gets involved in things, good things happen. Man, is anybody excited about that this morning? Does anyone think that God can use you? Much less confident. Can God use you? Man, say it like you mean it. Can God use you? >> Yes. God can use you. God wants to use you.

There’s proof that God can use anyone in anything. I take you back to that moment in verse 8. Samson has killed this lion. He’s left it in the woods. He comes back and there’s a swarm of bees making honey in this carcass. That lion would represent death and chaos and decay. And what’s happening in the middle of that chaos and death? Life and sweetness. Right there in the middle of something confusing and difficult, right there in the amusing in the middle of death. Samson looks and there’s this community of bees making something sweeter than anything else in this world. I want to say in the midst of pain, brokenness and confusion, God can meet you and create something incredible.

I want to ask you a weird question then. Where’s that center of death, chaos, and decay for you? What’s your your lion? What’s that place in your life that feels so empty and broken? What’s that issue you’ve gone through, that relationship you have, that broken trust, that darkness, that fear you have? What is that thing for you? Where it seems like nothing good can happen. Nothing good can come. It may be that’s the exact place where God just wants to just kindly and gently meet you. And start bringing life.

Think about the miracles of Jesus. You know, something that Jesus did was when He would heal people, He didn’t make a spectacle of Himself, but He would make sure that the person knew He was meeting them right where they were at. Reminds me of this moment where Jesus is in the town and there’s this guy named Jairus and Jairus is this very influential important sort of a guy. He’s got this 12-year-old daughter who is on her deathbed. Nobody can do anything for her and Jairus is desperate. He’s like, “Jesus, Jesus, please come heal my daughter. She’s going to die if you don’t come and do something now.” Jesus is man, He’s He’s interruptible. He’s like, “Yeah, okay, of course.” He starts making His way but all the crowds are making it hard for them to walk through and get to Jairus’s home. You remember the story? And then out of the crowd someone reaches out and just just kind of just lightly grabs the back of Jesus’s jacket. His cloak. Jesus says, “Paul.” Thank you. Stops everything. He says, “Who touched me?” They’re in the middle of a crowd. Peter. Man, always wise Peter. Love this guy. He’s like, “Jesus, everybody’s touching you right now, man.” And Jesus said, “No, somebody like really touched me. Somebody reached out needing something from Me.” And who steps forward except for this woman who for 12 years has had this menstrual bleeding going on which would have made her unclean socially. It would have meant that she couldn’t participate in church life. It’s drained her of all of her finances as and as she’s bleeding it you know, it’s literally draining her of her life all the time. And she says, “It was me. I’m the one.” Jesus calls her out not to shame her but to to tell her, “Hey, you’re not just healed. Man, you’re forgiven. I love you.” Jesus goes straight to the most vulnerable, the most private parts of our lives and our pain and He heals us there.

Now, what’s that place for you? What’s that dark hard place where you need Jesus to create life from? What’s your lion? Because what the Old Testament and the story of Samson is is man, God can use anyone and anything. And that hard place in your life, God wants to use that. So, what’s your response? It’s to give it to Him. Man, some of us we come in to church and man, we just we we come in like this. We’re so closed off. Not to each other. We’re happy to shake hands, happy To hug the necks, but man, we are closed off from God. I trusted You, God. I’ve asked for help, God. My grandchild, he’s still not walking with You, Lord. This medical situation, it’s still going on, God. My finances, still can’t get on top of them. This friendship, it’s still not there. That spouse, I still don’t have them. These kids that people are talking about, I don’t have those. We come in and we’re so upset with the Lord. And what God wants you to do is just, man, just open up a little bit and offer Him that place.

What I want to invite you to do right now is just close your eyes and bow your head. Needs to be real with the Lord. And just ask. Holy Spirit, what’s my dead place? What’s my dead place? God, is it something with my body and my health? Is it a relationship? Is it an unmet hope or dream? Is it a failure and a mistake I made? What’s my dead place, God? And once you have it in your mind, you just give it to Him. Like I literally want you to imagine in your minds that you’re holding that thing in your hands, and you’re just giving it to God. Say, “God, it’s Yours.” My body that I don’t like, it’s Yours. My family that doesn’t look the way I want it to, it’s Yours. My career setback, it’s Yours. My bank account, it’s Yours.

And then I want you to pray this. God, in its place, can You give me more of You? You give me more of Your life. Can You put some honey in the midst of this dead line that I’ve got? If anybody needs prayer for that place in your life, I’ll be down front. I’d love to pray with you. I’d love to pray for you and help you just process through what it could look like to give God that hard place in your life.

I’ll pray for us right now before we sing our final song. Jesus, God, You’re so good. You can use anything and anyone to do good. You can even use guys like Samson to deliver Your people. You can use preachers like me to help encourage somebody. You can use the cross to accomplish our salvation and forgiveness. Help us to give You everything we have. To trust You with everything we have, please. God, we love You. Thank You for loving us. Amen.